


Midnight Chat

by atamascolily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Bigotry & Prejudice, Clones, Fluff, Gen, Identity Issues, Jedi Training (Star Wars), Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Unsettled by rumors at the Yavin Academy, Dorsk 81 seeks out answers from Master Skywalker. While Luke has plenty of hot chocolate and sugar cubes to share, there are some questions only Dorsk himself can answer.





	Midnight Chat

Luke braces himself for the rap on the doorway even before he hears the footsteps. Dorsk 81's signature in the Force outside his quarters is as measured and even as the timbre of his knock, in a way no human can imitate. 

"Come in, Dorsk," Luke says, fetching another mug from the cupboard to join the one on the table. By now he's grown used to the midnight visitors, the long heart-to-hearts stretching until dawn, and the essential role of steaming beverages in soothing the (sometimes literal) ruffled feathers and strong feelings that come with Jedi training. Every student has their limit, and a mug of hot chocolate at the right moment goes a long way to keeping them in the light. 

In the early days, he'd been startled to learn his duties didn't end at the close of the day's lesson, that no class ever truly ended. He hadn't known then that as Jedi Master, he'd be surrogate father, confessor, and authority figure all wrapped in one. For far too many of the students here, he's the only one they can trust in their hours of greatest need, the first person to whom they turn. At times a burden, at times an honor, it's a double-edged sword in his hand. 

Brakiss came the night before, and Streen the night before that. Even calm, placid Cilghal has made a night-time excursions or two, but this is Dorsk's first time. Luke wonders what's happened to bring the steady Khommian out of bed at this hour, but shakes his head at his own impatience. He'll find out soon enough, when Dorsk is ready to tell him. 

Dorsk closes the door behind him firmly, then pulls the hood of his robe back. Humanoid in shape, the bald head, grey skin, and sulfur-yellow eyes that rarely blink make him unsettling to human norms, but Luke's grown used to them and focuses on what does concern him: the lack of emotions on his student's face. 

"I heard an unpleasant rumor today," he says promptly, in his clipped but precise Basic as he settles into the chair Luke indicates. "I hoped you could put my mind at ease." 

His tone is casual, but Luke knows from experience that Dorsk's emotions don't always map to the human norm. Dorsk is the only one of his species Luke has ever met - the vast majority are xenophobes who believe their society has achieved perfection, and anything new or different will detract from their utopia. Dorsk is the first in centuries to venture out of their quadrant of the Deep Core, let alone study as a Jedi. Despite his outward equanimity, Luke suspects that Dorsk is downright agitated by Khommian standards. 

He offers Dorsk the mug of hot chocolate he'd originally prepared for himself, but his student declines with a polite shake of the head. "No. It reacts poorly with my nervous system. Nonetheless, I appreciate the intent behind the offer." 

"Sugar, then?"

Dorsk nods, and accepts the proffered sugar bowl with a polite bow. He extracts a handful of white cubes and pops them into his mouth, crunching in satisfaction. "Ah, glucose. Delicious." 

Luke doesn't comment. "What did you hear?" he asks instead. 

Dorsk chews thoughtfully and rests the sugar bowl on the table with a sigh. "Kam told me that Mara Jade killed your successor." 

"What?" Luke says, racking his brains as to what Kam possibly could have meant. The only person Luke's ever seen die at Mara Jade's hands was-- 

Oh. Yes. He understands the problem now. 

"Yes," he says quietly. "It's true." 

"Why?" 

The million credit question. _Why does Mara Jade do anything?_ he wants to say. _I wish I knew._ But that's not fair to Mara - he knows why she did what she did, and it was for his sake as much as hers. Who's to say he wouldn't have done the same, had their positions been reversed? 

None of the holocrons he's recovered thus far have any tips on what to do when your student asks difficult questions. Of late, he has far more sympathy for Ben and Yoda than ever before, for certain points of view and stonewalling. In this case, neither one is an option. 

The best way to handle unwanted questions is to ask a question in return, to flip the energy back to his interlocutor. But Dorsk deserves the truth, such as it is. Luke wraps both hands around his mug and takes a sip of hot chocolate before replying. 

"My successor, as you call him, was indeed my genetic likeness, but made without my knowledge or consent," Luke says at last, wishing he knows more of Khommian society. "The one who authorized his conception - Joruus C'baoth - was insane, consumed by the Dark Side of the Force and his own egomania. He pitted the two of us together with the intention that only one of us would survive the encounter. Mara intervened and saved me the only way she knew how." 

Dorsk doesn't blink. "Was there no other way?" 

Luke's wondered the same thing ever since that day on Wayland. "Cloning doesn't work as well for humans as it does for your people," he says gently. "Not the way the Empire did it, at least. We need nine months in utero for a _reason_ , whether it's a natural womb or an artificial one. They were churning out armies of adult humans in less than a month, and the stress of such rapid growth had precipitous effects on their mental stability. Even if Luuke had survived, I don't know how long he would have lived on his own." 

(It's also unclear whether Luuke could have survived C'baoth's death, since the insane Jedi Master had hollowed out the clone's mind, effectively transforming Luuke into an extension of himself. Luke decides not to mention this detail--it only complicates the issue.) 

Dorsk closes his eyes. "Thank you for this explanation. I will meditate on this." 

A good answer, but Luke can tell Dorsk isn't finished, though his gravely voice doesn't change. A gap exists between them, springing from differences in sensation and perception, and further augmented by culture and traditions and expectations that set them apart. Luke meets it the only way he can: with kindness, openess, a willingness to be wrong and learn from the experience, and to do it better next time if he fails. 

Also, patience. He takes another sip of hot chocolate and waits. 

"I don't understand why people hate clones so much," Dorsk says after a while. "Through the holocrons, I have been studying the history of the Clone Wars, and the implications disturb me. My teachers on Khomm consider it proof of the backwardness of inferior civilizations, a hallmark of their barbarism. But that cannot be the full story, I think." 

Luke sighs. The Clone Wars. Well, that's complicated, too. The last battle ended over thirty years ago, but Thrawn and his Spaarti-spawned stormtrooper legions brought all those old nightmares back and the fear is fresh in the public's mind. Even after the Grand Admiral's defeat, people wonder how many sleeper cells still lurk, ready to burst free and fulfill their programming at a moments' notice. 

"We don't--like seeing people as things. As tools," Luke says at last, though he grew up on a world lacking such scruples. "The Republic was based on a society of free individuals, with equal rights and responsibilities. That--didn't happen in the Clone Wars, and everyone suffered." 

"I, too, believe those things to be important. That's why I am here, after all," Dorsk counters. 

Luke doesn't have a ready answer for him. This is a tension Dorsk will have to navigate on his own; Luke can only do so much. 

"I wish we had been able to save my--successor," he says, pivoting back to the original subject. The pain of this failure catches in his throat. He saved his father, after all - why not his clone, the almost-brother he never knew? "He was as strong as I am. It would have been good to have him here at the academy." 

"Maybe you'll have your chance someday when it's time to reproduce." 

Luke eyes him, expecting a joke, but the suggestion is in earnest. He can't help a chuckle all the same. "I think one of me is enough, Dorsk. If I ever reproduce, I'll do it the old fashioned way. Play the old genetic roulette, as Han likes to say." 

"Your peoples' conventions are the more sensible ones," Dorsk says unexpectedly. "I prefer the excitement of variability to the dull certainties of life on Khomm. Now I understand a little better why people hate me for being what I am." 

Not for the first time, Luke wonders if it would help to have Threepio to translate the cultural mis-matches, or if the fussy protocol droid would complicate matters even further. "No one hates you, Dorsk. No one here at the Academy, anyway. I can't promise that of everyone, but--honestly, most people have never heard of your people, let alone met one. They wouldn't know you for a clone unless you told them." 

Dorsk looks down at his hands, with their deep ridges and pointed fingernails. "My own people consider me an unfortunate deviation from the prepared template of my predecessors. Even as I made plans to leave, they commissioned a successor to replace me. No doubt he will be more to their liking then I was. Eighty generations of Dorsk preceded without fail, until I was born. Some unknown contaminant made me different from all the others, allowed me to touch the Force, and dream of the skies of other worlds. Wherever I go, I am an outsider--too original for my own people, too derivative for the rest of the galaxy. Where do I belong?" 

And there it is--the crux of the matter. The question that only Dorsk himself can answer, that he _must_ answer to become a Jedi. Luke shakes his head. How does a teacher answer such a loaded question without stifling the student? "What does the Force tell you?" 

"The Force does not speak to me of this." 

"Are you sure?" Luke presses. "What did it say to bring you here?" 

Dorsk hesitates, then nods. "I realized that even though I was the eighty-first incarnation of Dorsk, there would be no one else exactly like me before or after my time. My predecessors and your successors might pretend to be identical in mind and spirit as well as body, but even they could not change the fact that they chose conformity rather than embrace their own differences. And I knew I would find no peace carrying out my duties, but must seek another way." 

Luke nods. "Just so, Dorsk. The legacies of heritage and upbringing are real, but we are so much more than the sum of those parts. Our choices are real, and they matter. In every moment, we choose which will rule us. You've chosen a long road, and I'm afraid it's not an easy one, but I am glad you are here with us to ask those questions." 

Dorsk bows low. "Thank you for your words and offerings of sugar cubes, Master Skywalker. My mind remains unsettled, but my heart is at ease, as is my stomach. Now perhaps I may sleep." 

_You and me, both_ , Luke thinks. Khommians need less sleep than humans - only about four hours - and right now Luke envies that ability. Jedi healing trances are all well and good, but there's no substitute for a good night's sleep. 

"The galaxy is changing," Luke says as Dorsk gets up to leave. "Right now, clones are feared and hated, but it may not always be so. Perhaps you will be an agent for that change, someone who can speak from the heart that clones are people, too." 

_Clones are people, too._ That's a radical statement in certain sectors, but Luke believes it strongly despite his own unpleasant encounters with Imperial clones. They might be artificially created, but Luke's a twin, and not so different from a certain point of view. All people deserve respect, no matter their origins--and droids, too, although he keeps that thought to himself for now. The galaxy still isn't ready for that one. Yet. 

But who knows? Cray and Nichos have been advocating passionately for droid rights, and the galaxy is changing. Perhaps his Jedi will be agents of that change, too. Perhaps the start is here in this midnight conversations over hot chocolate and sugar cubes, in knowing when to speak and knowing when to let the student answer their own questions. 

Dorsk smiles at this possible future, exposing greyed molars without a single canine in sight. It's not a natural Khommian expression--it's one he's learned from Luke and the other students in his time on Yavin. "I vow to work harder then, to make that change happen within my lifetime." 

"That's why you are a Jedi," Luke says, and means it with all his heart. "May it be so. May it be so."


End file.
